IAM218- Entrepreneur and Brand Architect Build Powerful Brands and Partners With Others To Do The Same

Matt builds powerful, impactful brands and partners with others to do the same. He’s a purpose-driven entrepreneur and a leading international business strategist and brand architect focusing on luxury, lifestyle, health and wellness, cannabis, tech, fashion, arts and entertainment.

He’s worked and partnered with some of the worlds most prestigious brands under the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy conglomerate such as KRUG Champagne and Ruinart Champagne, as well as others to the likes of Cadillac and the World Trade Centers Association.

With two international business degrees (including and MBA from Thunderbird – #1 school for International Business), 20+ years experience in Internet technology, 10+ years in branding, he’s built a reputation for positioning brands for high visibility and scale, as well as maximum efficiency.

He’s also the owner of an online media company that houses a digital publication, Hustle & Deal Flow™, a Forbes featured podcast, The Hustle Sold Separately and his social media reaches millions, starting with his insanely engaging Instagram account @hdfmagazine. He’s currently also the co-founder of Cannabis Magazine, the #1 online destination for industry news and the newly launched Cannabis Magazine podcast. When Matt isn’t building brands or partnering with others, he mentors creative entrepreneurs all over the world via the web and has also created several online programs that help you scale your company’s overall growth intentionally and systematically.

• CEO Hack: (1) Calendar and blocking off (2) Whiteboard to write goals and vision
• CEO Nugget: (1) Get rid of distractions (2) Strong work ethics (3) Dig deeper into details of the process (4) Go to a successful person and learn from them
• CEO Defined: Stepping into your truth, setting the right example and serving your customers and team

Website: https://www.mattgottesman.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/hdfmagazine
https://instagram.com/mattgottesman
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mattgottesman
Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattgottesmanofficial

Full Interview

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today I've Matt Gottesman of mattgottesman.com. Matt, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Matt Gottesman 0:35

Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate your time too.

Gresham Harkless 0:37

Yeah, I appreciate your time. And I appreciate all the awesome things that you're doing and what I wanted to do, which is read a little bit more about Matt so you can hear about all those awesome things I was talking about. And Matt builds powerful, impactful brands and partners with others to do the same. He's a purpose-driven entrepreneur, a leading international business strategist, and a brand architect focusing on luxury, lifestyle, health and wellness, cannabis, tech, fashion, arts, and entertainment. He's worked in partnered with some of the world's most prestigious brands, and they the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy conglomerate such as KRUG Champagne and Ruinart Champagne, as well as others to the likes of Cadillac and the World Trade Centers Association.

With two international business degrees, including an MBA from Thunderbird, the number one school for international business 20+ years of experience in internet technology, and 10+ years in branding, he's built a reputation for positioning brands for high visibility and scale as well as maximum efficiency.

He's also the owner of an online media company that houses a digital publication Hustle & Deal Flow and a Forbes feature podcast, The Hustle Sold Separately, and his social media reaches millions starting with his insanely engaging Instagram account @hdfmagazine. He's currently also the co-founder of Cannabis magazine, the number one online destination for industry news and the newly launched cannabis magazine podcast. Well, Matt isn't building brands are partnering with others. He mentors creative entrepreneurs all over the world via the web and has also created several online programs that help you scale your company's overall growth internationally and systematically. Matt, it's awesome to have you on the show, you're ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Matt Gottesman 2:12

It's always crazy when somebody else reads all the different things going on in your world you don't even realize sometimes how much is actually going on until somebody says so.

Gresham Harkless 2:21

Yeah, absolutely. I can't imagine that you sleep much. But I appreciate you taking some time out to have a conversation. I want to drill a little bit deeper and I know it's touched on a little bit, but I want to hear about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Matt Gottesman 2:34

So, I ironically, never really worked for anybody. And that started in 2021. Now I had a lot of jobs up until then I started fairly learning work. My pops were all like, hey, you need to learn to work. At a very young age, I definitely had jobs. But I realized real quickly that I didn't have a corporate mentality. I love playing with others. And I love creating and collaborating. But, I'm in my late 30s, where that timeframe, that millennial shift was just starting to happen more, LinkedIn didn't exist, right? Facebook didn't exist, all these companies didn't exist. It was like the idea of corporate culture was still very linear. And I tried to be able to kind of mesh in there. And I just have my first startup in my early 20s. It was a digital music startup, an epic failure.

And it was amazing because it taught me everything I needed to know about tech and digital and engineering and design and copywriting, digital marketing, all that stuff that kind of became the start of me first running my own company and from like a consultancy side. And I just started working with all kinds of brands. And then I went back to school and then I got referred to a Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. And really, it was just kind of always putting me in these positions where they're like, Hey, we don't understand this stuff. Explain it.

So it was cool to be my own kind and have my own consultancy, but even then you learn a lot about what happens when you work with brands and that relationship, right? Because real quickly, other companies want to absorb you like an employee, not recognizing that you're a third-party person there to help unbiased get them out of their own way.

So to shorten that about five years ago, besides being a consultant, I knew I wanted to build something on my own. I recognize where content marketing and influencer marketing before they were calling it influencer was going and ultimately, I just I wanted my own distribution, no different than what you have with your podcasts and publications and whatnot. When you have the audience's attention and you treat them really well, then you can really grow companies and brands and impact and you can learn from them, what they're needing right?

And so for me, the next level is how I conduct myself as a CEO, how am I connected to the audience and understand what they need and learn from them, and see what is in my lane that I can deliver to them. And so yes, the podcasts, publications, everything just kind of go Boom.

Gresham Harkless 5:09

Nice, nice, nice. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel distinguishes you or your organization kind of sets you apart and makes you different and unique.

Matt Gottesman 5:19

So all right, there are actually a couple of things that are secret sauces. For me, especially when it comes to a brand. It's all energy, I'm doing it all off of energy. And typically people say let's just get to your brand mission, let's just write a quick message. But no, I say you got to go to the soul level of the person who's creating it. And so when you do that, you have a whole other experience that happens. And so I definitely do everything at the energetic level, I'll never force anything, it's all off of a feeling and a vibe. And that's not always easy to replicate, obviously, but that's why I've ended up working with so many really great individuals and brands and companies, because they're like, how do you do it? I'm like it's an intuitive, energetic thing, and it's getting to the core of the person, right?

So I'll talk with the CEO, and I'm like, why are you doing this man? And they say it's great for this product to do this. And I was like NO, Why are you doing this? And it's interesting, because if you go to that level, you actually start to get into their background and go all the way back to their childhood, you start to realize they were almost grooming themselves mentally, energetically, spiritually, whatever, for the position that they're in.

Now, one way or another, whether they were doing it consciously or subconsciously. So then you get to start to understand the story of their entire approach. And I was like when you talk like that, or when you message like that, that's when you connect with the audience, and they just skyrocket.

So being present, and really understanding people from an energetic level, I can actually help them with their brands go way beyond what they'd even anticipated and actually make it easier. But then, of course, it's coming out of their comfort zone, this can't be scripted, it's gotta be authentic. So there's definitely a subtle way to that. And then I don't do any of this stuff, scripted, in general. So like the podcast, I'm definitely prepared, I think you should know about your guests. If I go into a business meeting, or into any type of setting, it's respectful to know exactly who you are talking to. And a bit of their background.

Gresham Harkless 5:19

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Matt Gottesman 7:33

There are a few. There is a couple of Game Changers. Number one is the calendar. Every Sunday night, I actually look at the week ahead, I block off what I'm going to be doing during those times, including meditation, yoga, working out heights, whatever breakfast, all that stuff, I put that all in there the following Sunday, I actually look and see how effective it really that schedule was for me.

So instead of feeling overwhelmed all the time of like, Oh, I didn't stick to this, I will actually go back and say, okay this seemed to work for me, this did it, the more you know what you're doing with your time, the more you start to respect it. And the more you respect it, the more you're gonna accomplish what you want to accomplish for you. Another real thing is I've got one of these big, massive whiteboards on my wall, I got on those black glass quartet boards, I love it. Now I write all kinds of stuff down on the edges, I put like mission and goals and vision, things that are going to stay for a while in the middle. It's all the stuff that is ongoing that I need to get done.

Now, I don't have to look at it every day. That's not the purpose. But I put it in a place in the house where like vibrationally it's always in front of me. The interesting thing is I've had this now for about five months, and I'm on my third board. I had race stuff because it all got done. It was the weirdest thing to look up and it actually got done. Things that I was like, How the hell am I going to get all that done, right? And all of a sudden, I look up, I'm like, oh my god, I got it all done. And then I would race and put up more stuff. It's actually now becoming more exciting for me because there's not the pressure of I gotta get this done.

It's more exciting because I know that it's getting done. So sort of like, what? Try to remember the famous quote, but it was like writing it down. Not only Chickies but it was as if somebody of that magnitude and in that space that said, write it down. Oh, Erykah Badu write it down. There's something that happens when you actually write pen to paper or pen to board. Something happens in manifesting it just does. So I say put it on a board in front of a place in the house where energetically, it's always kind of top of mind even if you're not looking at it.

Gresham Harkless 9:53

Now I wanted to ask you what I call it a CEO nugget you might have already touched on this and this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can have it into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business?

Matt Gottesman 10:02

Oh, I haven't touched on that. There are a few things, I would get rid of the distractions as quickly as possible. I always had a strong work ethic. But I would have definitely dove deeper into the details of the process for one thing at a time. And just focus on one thing at a time, in the process. I think you hear a lot of entrepreneurs say embrace the process, love the process, you hear all the same things, but no one ever actually talks about, what that really means. I always give that analogy of if you can go into a garage, and instead of just asking for the keys to a Ferrari, ask them if you can help build the engine with them. So you know how it works, right? You get to know how the engine is built by building it yourself and understanding all the intricate details. So I would definitely be just a little bit more focused on the processes.

And also, I would say, even be more mobile, go wherever you need to go to surround yourself with the right people very early on. I always had good people around me, but for some of the things that I needed to accomplish, and do I needed probably maybe another geographic location for me might just be like a geographic location, right? So go find wherever the people that are close to the things that you want to do, and go do that. I also probably wouldn't have any regrets, I would never go back and change anything. But being a CEO very early on, I think what I would have done differently is I would have gone to a very specific person that I admired and a very specific industry I wanted to be in, I don't care if I worked for them for free, or whatever I would make it work. And I'd be like, I want to learn everything that you have to offer.

And I'll do the work for you. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do it. And then that way, one day I can do the same. You know what you do, I would hands down like any young CEO or entrepreneur at that, I would say like go do that right now, immediately. Because it's priceless. If you can get around that kind of person. And by the way, most successful people want to help people, they actually want to help people. The issue is that not a lot of people want to do the work, or they want to just kind of take they don't understand how the value exchange goes. You're going to a very high-profile person and asking him to teach you is fun, but be prepared to do the work. Let whatever they ask with no ego, like kind of a whole Mr. Miyagi Danielson karate kid thing, I think you take that approach, you're gonna be golden, you're going to shave off years, connections, networks, locations, getting in wherever you want to get in, you're going to shave off like an entire lifetime by doing that, and probably within a few years. So I would recommend that.

Gresham Harkless 10:02

Yeah, definitely getting a lot of times that knowledge and that information, just like we were talking about energetically when you're around that person, but you're also seeing exactly what they're doing, it starts to increase your likelihood of being successful, which is, of course, what a lot of people are looking to do. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question. And it's the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Matt, I want to ask you what does being a CEO means to you.

Matt Gottesman 13:17

I think a CEO means stepping into who you really are and into your truth. I think it means patience, humility, humbleness, and leadership, I think that we are all here to serve. When you act from a place of service, serving your customers, serving your team, it has a trickle-down effect for success, I believe that we have to embrace doing the work as an example so that other people will follow suit, if I work hard and smart, then so to my team, or so to will the people I educate or teach, we have to set ourselves as an example. So, because it's absorbable what we do, everything is absorbable.

And everything that we do also attracts everybody that comes around us. So you have to be so self-aware of how you can better yourself how you can better position yourself better educate yourself, and just your overall approach to life. Being a CEO is not an easy thing. It doesn't have to be a difficult thing. It's just not an easy thing.

And so there's that famous quote that it doesn't get easier, you just get better. It's true because you start to learn how to move differently, how to make better decisions quickly, and to detach yourself from an emotional decision and move more into just doing the right decision. Right? An intuitive decision, so that's also really important as a CEO, the self-awareness, so you have to learn to drop the ego as well.

Gresham Harkless 14:54

Absolutely. And that helps you to prepare yourself to be extremely successful. You're able to drop that ego and you're able to humble yourself and sometimes have that confidence but at the same time, understand that you can still learn things and still be better. So, Matt, I truly appreciate your time. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and our listeners know, and then of course, how they can find us subscribe to your podcast, and hear about all the awesome things that you do.

Matt Gottesman 15:18

Yeah, thank you. Anybody that wants to reach out I'm personally on mattgottesman.com. I am very communicative. On Instagram, I reply to every single comment, DM, you name it. So H as a Henry, D as in dog, Epson Frank HDFmagazine on Instagram, you can check out the blog hdfmagazine.com. We have a podcast obviously called The Hustle Sold Separately. And, we're on iTunes and Spotify, and Google Play, and I am on all your major platforms. I really love when people reach out through there. And yeah, they can reach out to me on any of those platforms, and I'm very engaging on Facebook, I'm there as well to MacOS beneficial or just MacOS, man, thanks for allowing me to be on your show, man. I actually appreciate it.

Gresham Harkless 16:06

No problem, I truly appreciate you not just for the time you had today but for everything awesome that you're doing and we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you and subscribe to the podcast and everything like that. But again, appreciate you again, I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Matt Gottesman 16:20

Thanks, Gresham. I appreciate you too.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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